THE chief executive of Hewlett Packard personally approved planting fictitious information with a journalist in an attempt to smoke out the source of damaging boardroom leaks, the computer maker admitted last night.

But the admission did not stop Mark Hurd, chief executive, from assuming the additional role of chairman after Patricia Dunn resigned yesterday, three months ahead of schedule, over her role in the leak investigations.

Mr Hurd’s part in the so-called “tracer email” scandal was disclosed at a press conference after the US markets closed last night. Investigators looking into boardroom leaks planted fictitious emails with journalists, hoping they would be forwarded to the journalists’ sources.

The company hired private investigators to find out who was telling the media about secret board meetings, after it ousted Carly Fiorina as chief executive in 2005. HP decided that George Keyworth, a long-term director, was doing the leaking. When Mr Keyworth was accused at a board meeting on May 18 he refused to resign but Thomas Perkins, another director, quit in protest, prompting the California investigation.

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, the law firm that began looking into HP’s boardroom leak investigation on September 8, found that, although Mr Hurd authorised the planting of information, he played no part in the use of the tracer email.

In the company’s first comments since the scandal began to unfold earlier this month, HP admitted that it had fraudulently obtained phone and fax records of nine journalists or family members, seven former board members and two existing HP employees. Fighting back tears, Mr Hurd said: “This is a complicated situation and the more I look into it, the more complicated it becomes.

“I take full accountability to get this right. Our job is to fix this and get back to the job of running the business.”

HP also admitted surveying a journalist at her home and an HP board member in Colorado. The social security numbers of three journalists and three current or former board members were obtained and used to secure information about phone calls, the company added.

HP’s leak investigation is also under scrutiny from Bill Lockyer, the California attorney-general, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr Hurd has agreed to testify to the House Energy and Commerce sub-committee on oversight and investigations scheduled for next Thursday, after Mr Lockyer threatened to issue subpoenas to HP because of what he described as a lack of co-operation in his criminal investigation.